Prologue (55 page)

Ginter paused again and waited. When neither of his hosts spoke he continued. “The cheap barrel explodes in his face, maybe killing him, maybe not. Maybe it just rips his face off leaving him writhing on the floor where the cops find him. And when they do he’ll either be dead, or half dead, with the busted up Mannlicher and all the other stuff I’ll plant before I beat it down the stairs.”

“Such as?”
Hutch whispered.

Ginter chuckled. “Airline tickets from
Dallas
to
Mexico City
to
Havana
, a complete plan in English since he speaks no Spanish, a map of his escape route, and some basic propaganda, all forged and prepared by Cuban Intelligence which planned this whole thing.”

“You think that’s enough for Kennedy to go to war with
Cuba
?” Hutch asked.

Ginter shrugged. “I’d say so. Once they start digging on Oswald, the press will have a field day. There’s a previous defection to the Soviet Union, a renunciation of his American citizenship, his Fair Play for Cuba activities in New Orleans, his attempt to kill a retired general, his trip to the Cuban Embassy in Mexico City, his meeting with a shadowy black man at the Cuban Embassy who handed him a briefcase with cash, followed by his return to Dallas, the assassination attempt on Kennedy ordered by Castro himself, and his escape route to Havana, all arranged by Fidel.

“If nothing else,” Ginter added, “I don’t think Kennedy will be deciding this Sunday to pull out of
Vietnam
. And if we get the reprieve on that, coupled with stopping Guevara in
Bolivia
…well, we’ve got a chance.”

“It’s crazy,” deVere stated.

“Really?”
Ginter asked, annoyed. “Why don’t you tell me how
your
Harrison
Salisbury
-New York Times plan is progressing? Having a lot of luck, are we?”

Hutch ignored the rebuke. “What happens to Oswald if he survives?” she asked. “What if he’s able to make a run for it down the stairs?”

Ginter shrugged. “I’ll be there when the Mannlicher rips open. After dumping the incriminating evidence next to the rifle, I follow Oswald out of the building and finger him to a
Dallas
cop. ‘Officer, I believe that’s the man from
Dealey
Plaza
you’re looking for,’ or some such. It won’t take much. The police will move in. Once he’s in custody, it’s all over. Everyone who worked at the Depository will have seen him in the building. Someone will remember seeing him on the fifth floor. His prints will show up on his rifle-remember the picture of him holding it in all the bios? Someone will have seen him bringing it in Friday all wrapped up, heck even in 1963 paraffin tests will show that our ‘Hero of Acapulco’ fired a weapon. He’s cooked.
Life in prison.”

“What if he talks?” Hutch asked.

“Let him,” Ginter countered quickly.
“If he yacks, perfect.
He’ll shoot his mouth off about Communism, Capitalism, the Cuban Revolution,
Fidel
, how he was recruited by Cuban Intelligence in
Mexico
, the list goes on. The more he talks the better off we are. The anger against
Cuba
will mount. Ché won’t even make it to
Bolivia
.”

“And if he doesn’t talk?” deVere asked.

“There will be nothing to refute the anti-Communist hysteria that will run rampant,” Ginter said. “The link to
Cuba
and Cuban Intelligence will still be there. I’d say if he does not talk, Kennedy invades
Cuba
in the spring.
Russia
does nothing to stop Kennedy-how can they?-still no navy in ‘63 to challenge the good old U.S. of A. Guevara dies on a Cuban beach trying to stop The One as it hits the sand. United Fruit has an office in
Havana
by ‘65. Kennedy establishes a red white and blue line across
Southeast Asia
, and the Balkans remain free for tin horn dictators.”

“So,” deVere asked, taking a deep breath, “where do we come in? That is, if we’re not to shoot the President?”

Ginter stood up and moved to the window. He looked down at the main street before turning back to face his hosts.

“Someone from CA is back here,” he said flatly.

“Pardon?”
Hutch asked.

“Someone.
An agent.
Not Collinson or Pomeroy but someone else.
A Russian.
He followed us through another wormhole. He followed us to
New Hampshire
. It was him that sicced the local cops on us on the hill at that park. And now he’s somehow tracked me to
Dallas
.”

Several moments paused before anyone spoke.

“That’s impossible,” deVere croaked.

“How?”
Hutch asked.

Ginter shrugged. “I’ve gone over the possibilities.”

“But no one else knows how to operate an Accelechron,” deVere protested. “We never wrote down directions. And who could build one? They don’t know how.”

“Maybe not in 2026,” Ginter corrected. “But there are other possibilities. Suppose they had several years to figure it out? Given seven or ten years the Soviet’s best scientists could probably figure it out. Maybe they figured out where we went, and why, and came back to stop us.”

“Impossible,” Hutch corrected. “Why would they send back just one guy? If that were the case they would have sent back a platoon to take us all out.”

Ginter shrugged.
“Maybe.
And there’s another problem. If they had seven or eight years of Soviet scientific tinkering with the Accelechron then that means that the neo-Sovs remained in control after 2026.
Which means that we failed in 1963.
So then why would they send anyone back? There would be no need to change anything.”

“But suppose,”
deVere
said slowly, “that we have already succeeded. Suppose we did change history. Maybe the Soviets invented their own Accelechron and figured the point in time when we changed history and came back to stop us.”

“How would they know we had changed history?” Hutch asked. “It would just be history.
Their history.
We would be irrelevant.”

“Unless we succeeded and went back and spilled the beans,” Ginter said. “In which case they would know that time travel had changed history. And they’d know when and where to come to.”

“
Your
Temporal Paradox,” Hutch said. “If we succeeded here and went back to 2026 and told our story, that means we went back to a non-Soviet world. So, if we did, then the CA won’t be there to come back to stop us.”

“Wait a minute,” deVere interjected. “How do you know someone is back? We haven’t seen anyone. Have you actually seen someone?”

Ginter shook his head. “No, but Oswald’s friends have. Oswald’s wife is Russian. At some local language class some Russian guy was asking around about other recent Russian immigrants and one of the students mentioned Oswald’s wife. The guy said that he knew that her husband was in
Cuba
.”

“So?” deVere asked. “What’s the big deal about that? He’s supposed to be in
Cuba
. And he’d be there if you hadn’t stopped him.”

“Yeah, but who knew that?” Ginter asked. “Only someone who was aware of Oswald’s defection to
Cuba
would think that it had still happened. The Russian guy wouldn’t know I had turned Oswald around. He’d still think that Oswald was gone.”

Hutch shrugged. “You’re paranoid, Lewis. Maybe Oswald told other people his plans and the Russian guy just assumed he had gone.”

Ginter shook his head forcefully.
“No way.
Oswald didn’t tell anyone except his wife. And the guy who was talking didn’t know the wife because the other student was mentioning her as another Russian who was living around here. The agent was described as someone who had just arrived.
Mexico City
was two months ago.”

“I don’t know, Lewis,” deVere said. “How would anyone know you were even in
Dallas
?”

“But then what is the agent up to and what can we do?” Hutch asked.

“My fear is that whoever this guy is, he’s trying to stop us,” Ginter answered. “He’ll try to wreck the plan on Friday.”

“Lewis, this is crazy!” Hutch protested. “Even if there’s some Russian guy back here who tracked you to
Dallas
, how could he possibly know that you’re planning a faked assassination attempt on Friday with the same Oswald who he thinks is in
Havana
?” She shook her head forcefully. “That makes no sense.”

“Maybe not, but someone is back here and we have to take precautions,” Ginter said.

“How?” deVere asked.

“On Friday, I’m going to be on the fifth floor with Oswald making sure everything goes fine. I need you guys on the street looking out for the Russian.”

“We’re not soldiers, Lewis,” Amanda said. “We’re teachers, for God’s sake. What do you expect us to do? Shoot someone?”

Ginter shook his head. “No, no guns.
Just information.
We will have walkie-talkies. I need you to watch for someone trying to disrupt us. I’ll take care of the rest.”

Paul glanced at the other two. “What about Pam? Where is she anyway? Can’t she help?”

Ginter let the curtain fall back against the window and shook his head. “I know you two, but I’m not sure I can count on her. I’d rather leave her out of it.”

Lewis Ginter turned back to the room. “So, what do you say?”